


Can You Feel the Love Tonight

by Somecallmemichelle



Category: Hey Arnold!
Genre: Can You Feel The Love Tonight, Disney Songs, Elton John - Freeform, F/M, Love, earbuds, lion king music, shortaki
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-27
Updated: 2017-07-27
Packaged: 2018-12-07 17:56:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,245
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11628846
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Somecallmemichelle/pseuds/Somecallmemichelle
Summary: Helga is on her usual "be on the down low by pushing Arnold around", though she secretely loves the song he's listening too, she can't let him know, Helga G Pataki can't be seen hearing love songs!A particularly violent tug on the earbuds though and she finds herself with Arnold on top of her. Dream come true? Or total embarassment?





	Can You Feel the Love Tonight

**Author's Note:**

> For Shortaki week day 5 - Discovery / Explosion / Music
> 
> I picked music. If it wasn't obvious enough.

“Really, football head? That song?”, Helga pushed herself in front of Arnold Shortman, stopping him from going anywhere. Arnold didn’t even try to sidestep her, she knew very well that when Helga was on one of her rants, of which he was often the target, she would follow him no matter where it went. He stopped uttering the little diddy, and silently rolled his eyes, Helga might think it, but Arnold was anything but oblivious. She couldn’t be more obvious if she went on a rant where she seemed to develop a second personality and started loathing and loving him at the same time, which, according to Gerald, she had already done, at least once.

 

Still, maybe he would humor her a bit. It was not like he enjoyed teasing her, he was just himself, he didn’t think he was properly the best or biggest thing around, but Helga quite clearly thought so. And what a better way to pass through her than to let her ramble and rant? Even so he’d stand his ground.

 

“Yes, Helga, this song”, he gestured to his earbuds, that he had removed as soon as she placed herself in front of him, because he knew that she would want to say something, and, though it’d likely be bickering, he still had education. So they lay down the front of his shirt, where he had placed them, so they didn’t fall to the ground.

 

“But, seriously?”, Helga went for the grab, picking up one of the loose earbuds, he pushed it to her ear, and made a grimace, as the music touched. She actually liked the song, but she couldn’t let Arnold learn that. Romantic songs, were so  _ not _ the image she wanted people to have of Helga G Pataki. She pushed the earbuds in her direction, unaware of what consequences that would bring. For Arnold had them clipped on, and while one of the blue earbuds had gotten loose, he was still very much attached to the other one. So much so that when Helga, who always overdid it when it came to strength, pushed the earbud, he was dragged alongside it, right on top of a very flushed Helga.

 

The music still played in the little device, and out the earbuds, so they could hear a little part of the chorus, the “can you hear the love tonight”, but none would say that they could see what was happening. Arnold was on top of Helga, with a nice, flat view of the pavement, glad that something had broken his fall, and wondering just what it had been. He didn’t see Helga pushing himself in front of him to stop him from falling, at least while she insisted on playing this pretense game, while Helga could feel something pressing her chest against itself. It was painful to say the least, and, as she hadn’t figured out what had happened and who was that was on top of me, she was about ready to snap whoever little twerp had fallen on top of her in half.

 

Arnold blinked, lifting his eyes from the pavement, as he got a view of something yellow. At first he thought it to be some of his hair that had fallen along with him, given its similarity in the color pallet. But it was in the entirely wrong position for it to be the case.   
  
As he pushed his head upwards, which had the unfortunate consequence of digging his knees on Helga’s waist, he finally understood what had happened, and, if he hadn’t, he’d probably have been clued in by the moan of discomfort that the girl had released. 

“Oh, hum, sorry”, he said. Ignoring whatever filth was on the streets of Hillwood, which he passed every day and choosing to roll aside to the ground, so that Helga would have a chance to get up.

 

Helga cranked her fists, ready to beat whomever had been on top of her when she noticed who it had been. Arnold. The football head, his dream boy. She felt like her head was shaking and it had nothing to do with the fall. She had just had Arnold, ooh how she loved him, that Arnold, the shortman, arnoldo, what might have been very well been the answer to all her doubts, and worries, and inferiority complex (not that she would admit that one), on top of her, and all she had done was groan and complain.    
  
And then he had lifted himself up, oh how she would have loved to have stayed quiet so that he would have remained against her, his chest against hers, enjoying the contact, even if she was being coated in the city grim, and this wasn’t how she imagined Arnold being on top of her, she wished she hadn’t said anything.

 

The earbuds lay to the side, and as she pushed her hand around the floor, looking for a steady place to rise up, she bumped the side of her hand into them. She picked them up, intending on returning them to Arnold, as she had been enough of a jerk already. As she did she couldn’t help but listen to the song. It was still going, through those moments were she had been in the ground together would be repeated in her head ad infinitum until they took up hours, the contact had been far too short. Either that, or Arnold’s playlist was just that song. She’d believe it, Arnold could be emotional sometimes. The line of the song being played at the moment was “And can you feel the love tonight, it is where we are…”, and Helga couldn’t help but think that it applied, even in the streets, even in the dust and specks of whatever substance they had fallen in, she was wide eyed, in love.   
  
Arnold was

  
She picked them up and she was pushed her back against the pavement intending on flipping herself up, but something stopped her vision, a hand.

 

Arnold was offering her help to get up, even if she had caused the fall, even if she had taken his stuff, was there any further proof that Arnold was a gentleman? She grabbed his hand and got up.

 

“Thank you, football head, here, this belongs to you…”, she went to deliver the earbuds, but was taken aback by the grin on arnold’s face.   
  
“Are you ok? You feel it too, right?”, Helga choose to say that of course she wasn’t ok, she had fallen into the ground, and no she had no idea of what she was supposed to feel.   
  
“Your stupid music threw me to the ground, I’m not ok, what am I supposed to feel anyway?”, the song was now fading, now that any of them could hear it.

  
“The love tonight…can you feel it?”, Arnold had a frikkin priceless grin as Helga sputtered and blushed, trying to find words.

  
“Well, yeah, maybe the song’s not so bad”,she said, ignoring the sirens going in her head, because he had used the world love when talking to her. “See you later, Arnoldo.”.

 

She could have the back of her dress spotted beyond a fix, as pink was easy to dirty up, but her heart beat so fast that it was a wonder she wasn’t running, her legs shook, and her brain was a constant chorus of “YES, YES, YES!”.

 

Overall, as she let him go,  things had turned out for the better.


End file.
